Ukraine conducts prisoner swap with Russia, freed 207 captives include Mariupol defenders
As part of another prisoner swap with Russia, Ukraine returned 207 service members from Russian captivity, announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The head of state thanked the chief of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk, the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, the secretary of the Coordination Headquarters Dmytro Usov and the head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak for the exchange.
"We are returning [people], no matter what. We remember each and every prisoner. Soldiers and civilians," Zelenskyy said.
He stressed that Ukraine must return all prisoners and is working on this.
Yermak clarified that soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, border guards – privates, sergeants and officers – have returned.
Among them are many defenders of Mariupol and Azovsta steelworks, Snake Island, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Kherson and Sumy axes.
On January 3, 2024, the 49th exchange of prisoners of war since the beginning of the full-scale war took place as 230 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were released, marking the largest swap since August 2023.
At the same time, Russia tried to misinform, claiming that not 230 captives returned to Ukraine, but 173, saying that for every commander from Azovstal released in the summer, 15 Russians had to be returned. Another Russian fake was refuted in Ukraine.
On January 10, the Coordination Headquarters announced the launch of the "I want to find" project to search for missing Russian soldiers. The goal is to encourage the Russian Federation to increase the number of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of the dead.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada, believes that, as of today, the exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in the "all for all" format is impossible, because the aggressor state is not interested in this.